MB members sentenced 1yr in prison over 'disturbing' trial process

CAIRO - 5 May 2018: Muslim Brotherhood member Essam Sultan has been handed down a sentence of one year in prison over charge of "disturbing the judicial process" during the hearing on the case that is publicly known as “Rabaa sit-in dispersal” on Saturday.

Sultan, the former head deputy of Wasat Party, is one of 793 defendants facing charges of staging an armed gathering in Rabaa square in Cairo, illegally possessing and handling weapons, blocking driveways, deliberately vandalizing public property, along with other counts relating to murdering policemen and citizens.

Amongst the defendants are members of the top guidance bureau Essam el-Erian, Safwat Hegazy, Mohamed el Beltagy, Usama Yassin, and former president Mohamed Morsi, Essam Maged, Abdel Rahman al-Barr, Safwat Hegazy, Mohamed el-Beltagy, Usama Yassin, Issam Sultan, Basem Odeh, Wagdy Ghoneim, and photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zaid (Shawkan) who won the 2018 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize on April 23.

Sultan was arrested July 29, 2013 in his apartment in the neighborhood of Moqattam in Cairo following the dispersal of the Rabaa sit-in.

On August 14, 2013, Security Forces set out to disperse the Muslim Brotherhood sit-in in Nasr City’s Rabaa al-Adawiya, along with another sit-in located in Nahda Square, Giza. In December 2013, Egypt has labeled the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization following attack targeted a police directorate in Dakahlia governorate in the same month.